270 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



more or less permanent the husbands of women of the 

 stock ; for the rule of exogamy prevails, and the men 

 who are thus married to women of another stock 

 are required to take up their abode with them and 

 cultivate their land. Beside this, however, they do 

 not cease to possess their own land at their own 

 home, the produce of which for the most part they 

 bring to their wives' families. Only elder men and 

 chiefs are allowed to bring their wives and children 

 to live with them ; but such wives and children do not 

 cease to belong to their own home and stock ; the 

 children as they grow up very often visit it ; the sons 

 cultivate property there which belongs to them ; and 

 their allegiance is due to it. The writer to whom we 

 are indebted for the information states generally of 

 the Caroline Islands (but apparently his statement 

 is to be understood more definitely of the social 

 arrangements of the Mortlock Islanders) that "the 

 children are real children only to the mother ; to the 

 father on the other hand they are strangers not belong- 

 ing to his kin. In case of war between two kins father 

 and son take opposite sides as enemies." * The popu- 

 lation of Malekula, one of the islands of the New 

 Hebrides, appears to be similarly organised. Though 

 members of more stocks than one may live mingled in 

 the same village, the villages to which they properly 

 belong are well known, for " in speaking of the men 

 of a village natives never forget to tell you the villages 

 to which the different individuals belong." Descent 

 is reckoned through the mother ; in war the children 

 take the side of her kin, "even although they 



1 Wilken, Verivantschap, 756, citing an article by Kubary in 

 the Mitt, der geog. Gesellschaft in Hamburg. 



